Father’s Day 2012: Not all jobs and play for dads - there's chores too!

Dads are still finding time for their kids, statistics from the ABS show.

More than 90% of dads with kids under 15 years living with them had jobs in 2010-11; and most of these dads worked full-time. Dads employed full-time worked in their jobs for about 42 hours per week on average.

But dads were also busy after work, with 46% of dads with kids aged up to 17 years volunteering time to help an organisation or group, with 59% of the volunteers helping with sporting or other physical recreation activities. Of the volunteering dads, 39% gave time at least once a week, and a further 18% did so at least once a month.

Dads spent almost four hours a day caring for children in 2006. Dads also work around the house, with those with full time jobs in 2006 spending around 80 minutes a day on domestic work, dads with part-time jobs worked for over two hours a day around the house, and dads not employed spent three hours per day on domestics activities.

39% of employed men provided care to someone in the week prior to interview in 2007, and 86% of those men were providing care to their own or step child. Just over half (54%) of the employed men providing care felt that their work and family responsibilities were in balance in 2007, with only 16% feeling they were rarely or never in balance.

Of the 366,000 dads who had children living elsewhere with another parent in 2009-10, 22% had their child stay overnight with them at least once a week and a further 27% had their child stay overnight with them at least once a month.

Dads are also getting older – for babies born in 2010, the median age of their dads was just over 33 years, compared to just under 31 years in 1990.